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3.29 AVERAGE
3.29 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I'm as unsure how to describe this book as the author was about how to finish it. The atmosphere is set up very well, with a spooky forest, the two groups in two different time periods, and an unknowable entity stalking through the forest.
Could it have been a tense Predator-style hunt? Maybe. Could it have been a ghost or a witch or a revenant? Maybe
Could it have been a metaphor for the unknown, facing your fears and what it means to chase your dreams as far as they can take you? Maybe.
I'm not sure what it was, and maybe that was the point. There is no answer, there is no conclusion, stuff just kind of stops happening? There are far too many names in the past perspective, so much so that I'm not entirely sure who is who aside from the leader. At no point did I remember who it was from the past that had survived to tell the stories the people in the present were investigating, and it turns out a handful of pages from the end of the book that it was the people that ran away right at the start?
For a very short book, it was very easy to forget what had happened from chapter to chapter. Nothing particularly was memorable except vibes, and the vibes were bland.
I would recommend if that's what you're going for, and I can also state that I am new to horror books, but I cannot say that I would reread this one.
Could it have been a tense Predator-style hunt? Maybe. Could it have been a ghost or a witch or a revenant? Maybe
Could it have been a metaphor for the unknown, facing your fears and what it means to chase your dreams as far as they can take you? Maybe.
I'm not sure what it was, and maybe that was the point. There is no answer, there is no conclusion, stuff just kind of stops happening? There are far too many names in the past perspective, so much so that I'm not entirely sure who is who aside from the leader. At no point did I remember who it was from the past that had survived to tell the stories the people in the present were investigating, and it turns out a handful of pages from the end of the book that it was the people that ran away right at the start?
For a very short book, it was very easy to forget what had happened from chapter to chapter. Nothing particularly was memorable except vibes, and the vibes were bland.
I would recommend if that's what you're going for, and I can also state that I am new to horror books, but I cannot say that I would reread this one.
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
** Thanks to NetGalley, Fiona Barnett, and Rebellion for this ARC **
The Dark Between the Trees by Fiona Barnett will be out October 2022.
The Dark Between The Trees is told from multiple perspectives. A group of academics, map makers, and park rangers are entering the Moresby Wood, an area of England that the locals believe is haunted by The Corrigal, a creature that kills anyone who enters the woods. The lead researcher, Alice, is interested in solving the mystery of what happened in 1643, when a group of soldiers entered the woods, were ambushed, and then disappeared. Only two survived, and they reported to the local priest a story of The Corrigal and of trees disappearing and reappearing. This mystery has become her professional and personal obsession and she finally has a chance to solve it.
This book was really promising! It was atmospheric, supernatural, and horror-light. At times I thought I would be rating it 4 stars. Unfortunately, the ending really didn't do it for me. There were a lot of unexplained loose ends and I disliked that very little was ever resolved. When the book ended, I had a lot of questions, and not in a good way.
2 stars - it was okay
The Dark Between the Trees by Fiona Barnett will be out October 2022.
The Dark Between The Trees is told from multiple perspectives. A group of academics, map makers, and park rangers are entering the Moresby Wood, an area of England that the locals believe is haunted by The Corrigal, a creature that kills anyone who enters the woods. The lead researcher, Alice, is interested in solving the mystery of what happened in 1643, when a group of soldiers entered the woods, were ambushed, and then disappeared. Only two survived, and they reported to the local priest a story of The Corrigal and of trees disappearing and reappearing. This mystery has become her professional and personal obsession and she finally has a chance to solve it.
This book was really promising! It was atmospheric, supernatural, and horror-light. At times I thought I would be rating it 4 stars. Unfortunately, the ending really didn't do it for me. There were a lot of unexplained loose ends and I disliked that very little was ever resolved. When the book ended, I had a lot of questions, and not in a good way.
2 stars - it was okay
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Abandonment, War, Injury/Injury detail
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
An army unit is attacked, decimated and the survivors flee into a forrest, that is haunted by something. Only two of them get out alive to give an unreliable account of what happened in those woods.
400 years later a small group of park rangers, historians and a surveyor retrace their steps, hoping to find the bodies of those soldiers and an explanation for their disappearance. Be afraid of what you wish for! They get lost, their phones stop working, the GPS is also not working, someone gets hurt, something seems to be stalking them.
In the meantime in the alternating chapters the soldiers are also lost in the woods. They keep walking, trying to find a way out and something is starting to pick them off.
At that stage I was a third into the story, I was bored and I started skimming. Probably sounds odd, I know. It should have been a gripping read, but it was too slow, too vague, too many interchangeable characters that I found hard to tell apart. There was quite a bit stream-of-consciousness happening for various characters, that killed any suspense for me. The author tried hard to create an athmospheric setting, describing smells, the feeling of the forrest floor, etc., etc., but by that point I didn‘t care anymore. Too much hiking through the woods, too few monsters.
I skimmed along for a few more chapters, getting glimpses of the underlying explanation for the what and why of the story. I put the book down around halfway, but could‘t let it lie and checked out the beginnings of all following chapters. Lots of walking through the woods, spoilery things not to be mentioned here, a not particularly exciting ending (I kinda liked the last chapter). I looked for a different book, I guess. More blood, gore, creatures and nail-biting, less hiking.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated